Creative Differences
by carnageincminor
Summary: AU, mildly crack!fic oneshot. Rorschach visits Gotham. He does not get along with the resident vigilante. Batman POV.


Written for the mission_insane fic challenge on LJ.  
Title: Creative Differences  
Author: carnageincminor  
'Verse: Batman (Watchmen crossover in this fic)  
Claim/Characters: General - Batman, Rorschach  
Rating: T  
Warnings: violence, coarse language  
Disclaimer: Batman belongs to DC Comics/Warner Brothers and was created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger. Watchmen belongs to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. I own nothing but my words.  
Summary: AU, mildly crack!fic oneshot. Rorschach visits Gotham. He does not get along with the resident vigilante. Batman POV.  
Table/Prompt: Crack - hair  
Words: 2072

**.**

**CREATIVE DIFFERENCES**

**.**

Wednesday

_There's that shock of red hair again._

A light frown crosses his face as Bruce peers out the window. He only started noticing it yesterday. A ginger-haired hobo stands on the street, bearing a grim face and a grimmer sign that reads "THE END IS NIGH". Bruce has never seen him before. He must be new.

"Something bothering you, Master Wayne?" Alfred eyes him through the rearview mirror.

"Hmm? No, it's nothing." He turns back to the hobo, taking the opportunity to study him while the Rolls is stopped at a traffic light. He is short and dirty, dressed in a tattered green overcoat that looks like it crawled out of a dumpster, possibly carried by an army of lice. _Really bright red hair. Really ugly_. Definitely new, as Bruce is sure he would have remembered such a unique face if he had encountered it in the past.

"Alfred, have you ever seen that man before?" He jerks his thumb in the hobo's direction.

Alfred obligingly takes a glance. His placid expression transforms into one of mild revulsion for a second. "No, I can't say that I have, sir."

_Curious_. It's a rare thing to come across homeless persons on his way to work, seeing as how they tended to cluster in poorer districts, which makes this man's arrival even stranger.

The car starts moving again and ginger is soon out of sight. Bruce settles back into his seat, perturbed. When he gets out at Wayne Enterprises, he is whisked away into a meeting with Ferris Boyle of GothCorp, and thoughts of the mysterious vagrant slip to the back of his mind.

--+--

Thursday

Bruce is staking out a suspected drug trafficking syndicate in his undercover guise, when he catches a flash of curly red hair out of the corner of his eye. He has to look.

There's that hobo again, with his doomsday sign, roaming the Docks. The golden afternoon sun positively sets his hair aflame. _What's he even doing here?_ The Docks are on the other side of town, and Bruce has never seen a street bum with that much wandering range. Even so, the man doesn't appear lost or aimless; he circles by a warehouse in his slow, deliberate walk and with those deadpanning eyes that hint at something beneath the surface. Madness, most likely. He doesn't approach anyone for money so perhaps he's simply trying to spread his crackpot end-of-the-world theories. Just as well, since the busy dock workers aren't exactly charitable folk. In fact, they barely notice his presence. For such a conspicuous-looking man, he manages to make himself oddly invisible.

The loud gunning of an engine calls Bruce's attention back to his primary task. A truck has pulled away from the wharf and is leaving -- Bruce has just missed the most crucial part of his stake out. _Dammit!_ He was supposed to observe what cargo it was carrying, and who was driving it. That evidence would have been vital to busting the band of smugglers. And he's missed it.

_What a waste of time_. In frustration, Bruce slams down the lid of a wooden crate harder than usual. He gets a few looks from the smugglers and others nearby but they disregard him; he's just a labourer. He shoves his remaining prop crates onto the back of a pickup and gets into the car, a dark scowl on his face. All he's able to do now is memorise the truck's licence plate and hope it reveals something useful. He blames the hobo for breaking his concentration.

--+--

Friday

A full moon shines high over the city, offering just enough light by which to navigate the backstreets. It's a few minutes to midnight and all is quiet. There's only the occasional clatter of garbage bin lids as Bruce passes stray cats and homeless persons alike scrounging for scraps.

The sound of breaking glass a block away spurs him into action. He darts up a fire escape and crosses rooftops in that direction until he sees the commotion below. Two men appear to be locked in combat and one of them cries out gruffly in pain.

As Bruce descends onto the scene, he is able to make out a figure in a trenchcoat and hat, sitting on the other man's back and vigorously twisting the man's arm at an unnatural angle.

"Who ordered it?" His demand comes out in a menacing rasp, not too different from Bruce's own voice when he's in the batsuit.

The man on the ground remains defiant in spite of his position. "Not telling you!" There's a sickening crack as the man on top breaks his finger.

Bruce has seen enough. He sneaks up behind the two and grasps the man in the trenchcoat by his collar, throwing him off his victim. The man crashes against a wall with a grunt, taken by surprise, but rebounds quickly in a spin. For the first time, Bruce lays eyes on the man's shadowed face and realises that it's not really a face at all. He's wearing a mask.

And it's the strangest mask he's ever seen. It _moves_. Bruce stares in horror as the inkblots begin to consolidate in the middle, morphing into a shape, and... _is that a bat?_

Distracted, Bruce is unprepared when the man pounces him in a flash. He knocks him over, not just with the force of his momentum but the sudden _smell_. Dear Christ, _the smell_. As they tackle and wrestle and exchange blows, up close and confrontational, Bruce is increasingly unnerved by how much the other man stinks; it's even hampering his own defensive manoeuvres.

In spite of his pocket-sized stature, the trenchcoated man is incredibly fast and difficult to throw off. Bruce finally resorts to thwacking him soundly over the head with his wristguard. The spikes tear the man's hat off and as he stumbles backward, dazed. The hideous mask goes into chaotic swirls, and Bruce rips it off as well.

Then it's his turn to be stunned. Bright red hair, a dirty, hideous face not even a mother could love -- it's the very same hobo who has been turning up everywhere and getting in his way. "You!" He starts, only to be cut off by the hobo who is suddenly alert and stark raving, foaming-at-the-mouth _furious_.

"GIVE ME BACK MY FACE!" He roars and forcefully snatches the piece of fabric from Bruce's fingers before he has time to react. His unruly mop of red disappears again under the mask. With a quick swipe at the ground, he also replaces the brown fedora in its rightful spot.

"Who _are_ you?" Bruce frowns as soon as his motor neurones resume functioning. "And what are you doing here?" He'd seen the look in his eyes during that moment. Utterly bonkers. The man could do with a stint in Arkham, and Bruce has half a mind to cart him off there.

"Stopping thief," ginger snarls in reply, his body still tense and bristling. "Before you showed up."

"That man's a --?" Bruce glances over his shoulder at the man on the ground, confused. He'd had it all wrong. He thought the hobo was the aggressor. "You're a crime fighter?"

The disbelief in his voice is not lost on the other man. "Is that what you call yourself."

Bruce could picture the vagrant's expression twist in disdain even as his tone remains flat. He narrows his eyes indignantly. "Who do you think I am? I'm Batman. The Dark Knight." Scourge of the underworld. His reputation is supposed to precede him. He's _dressed_ as a bat, for Christ's sake. Couldn't the man tell? Was he dense or something? "I've put more criminals behind bars than you can count."

"Hurm." The man sounds unimpressed. Apparently assured that he isn't about to be attacked again, he steps past Bruce and focuses on unfinished business. The man on the ground hasn't tried to escape during their scuffle and Bruce can see why -- he's limp and moaning and probably has a dozen broken bones.

Surveying the scene, he notes the broken window of a rundown office two storeys up, and a dropped briefcase scattering loose documents into the street. The hobo-vigilante is now crouched before the thief, lifting his head up by a handful of hair.

He asks again, "Who hired you?"

"Kiss my ass, Rorschach," the man sneers through a broken nose, resolute.

With frightening strength, he slams the thief's skull against the ground, forehead first.

Bruce's eyes widen in horror. _What the hell is he doing?_ He rushes forward and grabs the psycho-hobo-vigilante, just narrowly preventing him from delivering a repeat performance.

"You're going to kill him!" He hisses reproachfully. Bruce takes a moment to check the thief's head injury; he's out cold, and probably has a severe concussion at best. There's blood all over him.

"That's the idea," Rorschach snaps back, annoyed at being interrupted for the second time.

"No, it isn't." Bruce can hardly believe the man's seriousness. He's more unhinged than he'd previously thought. "What's wrong with you? Are you professional or not?"

"Evil must be _punished_."

"Not like this. We're not killers; we bring criminals to justice through the legal system."

The man shakes his head. "Ridiculous. Courts are a joke -- all those liberals, smooth talkers. They know nothing about justice."

"I can't let you kill this man," Bruce reiterates, standing firm. It doesn't matter to him if the two know each other -- Rorschach probably having tracked the thief to Gotham -- or if the thief has committed greater atrocities in the past. This is the one rule he cannot break.

"You're soft," Rorschach growls harshly. "Just like the others."

"Others?"

"In New York."

So, he was from New York. And definitely insane. Bruce has more than enough on his plate, what with the ever growing incidents of crime and madness in Gotham, that he doesn't need adding to the mix a homicidal hobo with delusions of being a crime fighter. He makes his decision.

"Listen -- Raw Shark? Go home to New York. Leave Gotham, tonight, and don't come back." He nods at the unconscious man. "I'll deal with him."

The other vigilante is silent for a long moment as he stares at Bruce through that unreadable fabric. He eventually lets out a guttural rumbling sound that culminates in one word. "No."

Bruce is taken aback by his persistence. "What? Why not?"

"Will not compromise on this." His stance shifts slightly, bracing for conflict.

Losing patience, Bruce struggles to keep his temper level. Rorschach was _completely batshit_. Stubborn. Impossible. "I'm afraid you'll have to," he presses. "You don't want to wind up in Arkham Asylum, do you?"

Another low rumble issues forth from the man. He's even shaking. If ever Bruce were to imagine a rabid pitbull in human form, this would be it. But just as Bruce thinks Rorschach is about to erupt in a frenzy of violence and protest, the man snaps shut in an instant. He takes a jerky step back and turns to walk off.

Bruce watches the trenchcoated figure fade away into shadows and echoing footsteps, half wondering if he's really seen the last of him.

--+--

Monday

Bruce is relieved to find no sign of Rorschach anywhere, in either his masked or hobo form. Nor has he seen him over the past couple of days while on patrol. Even the battered thief from Friday's robbery has been recovering in Gotham General without any attempt on his life, although he has an interrogation to look forward to once he's discharged.

As it turns out, Rorschach had been investigating the same matter as Bruce. The thief worked for a guy named Big Figure, who ran a mob that did a fair amount more than just dope smuggling. Bruce still finds it hard to believe Rorschach was capable of following a case like this one, and unveiling so much about it. He seemingly attacked people at random.

Arriving home, Bruce enters the kitchen in search of something to eat. With Alfred out on errands, he'll have to settle for making his own snack which was invariably less satisfying than one of Alfred's culinary masterpieces. Nonetheless, Bruce peers into the fridge, eyes taking stock of what's available. Eggs, milk, juice, yoghurt... and then there's something that doesn't belong: a ripped piece of cardboard bearing a hand drawn scribble.

THE END


End file.
